NEW PENDANT DESIGNS FOR THE NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Holiday!  WE SURE DID - and with the December Christmas spirit came the birth of our third grandchild, a little girl, Lily Viola.  What a wonderful feeling it is to have grandchildren.  Truly, it is the best thing in the world.  Three will be it for our little clan, and we are grateful for each of these little people.  They bring us so many moments of incredible joy. 

I'm ready to take on new challenges for the new year and of course my favorite bead shop, Bead Street, carries me on this journey... Here are a couple of new designs by Vezsuzsi -- the first pendant below she named the "Ohm".  Is this beautiful or what?  It uses the new piggy beads on the corners.  I had an "ahhhhh" moment when I put those on and then added the rizos thereafter.  It's such an incredible design.  Some designers just have a gift and Vezsuzsi is one of my favorites.  Thanks, Sandy Taylor for teaching these wonderful classes and being such an inspiration.  :)

 

The second design by Vezsuzsi is below, named "Szirmos Misi".  I have no idea where the names come from... but I'm sure that would be an interesting story in and of itself!

SNOWMEN AND DUELING BRACELETS

First, some snowmen to add some smiles to this stressful time of year.  These can't help but make you grin!  Their scarves keep them warm too, don't ya know!  :)

 

 

Next, a fab, albeit very time consuming, bracelet design by Marcia Balonis named "Whistle Stop", taught by Sandy Taylor @ Bead Street.  It's a gorgeous pattern, and well worth every moment I spent beading away...  I wanted a mixed metal look, so used matt silver lentils on top/gold sb and copper/orange/redish fire polish w/reddish/brown bricks.  I don't know the exact color names of what I used, so don't you love how precise my descriptions are? Ha. This bracelet feels really nice on the wrist too - it's one of those that feels great next to the skin and it moves with you.

 

 

This is a Vezsuzsi design named Leo Bangle, also taught by Sandy Taylor at Bead Street.  I'm having a devil of a time getting a decent pic of this bracelet.  It doesn't matter if its taken inside or outside.  It wants to show more pink tones, but it's really a true beautiful red--disappointing.  It drapes beautifully around the wrist because it is designed to be a bangle, but I made it a clasp instead.  I like to be able to size it closer to my wrist size and bangles don't work so well for that.

Snowflake Inspired Necklace

I love this modified tubular herringbone pattern of Eileen Barker's design - from a previous post - named Tubari.  In this version I added 3mm rounds to the 8mm sb and rizzos.  And, this beautiful pendant by Tracee Dock at the Classic Bead .  Perfect time of year for a beautiful artisan ceramic snowflake.  Tracee does beautiful work and I have several of her pieces, still waiting to be attached to that perfect stitch!

 

For the back part of the necklace I added some incredible Czech glass stones, and wire wrapped inbetween.  You can see the marbling in the stone in the closer up photo of the earrings below.  I also added little silver snowflake charms for a contrast to the copper wire.  I think that makes them stand out a bit more.

 

 

NEW CHRISTMAS DESIGN!

Learning a new beading pattern or technique is such a gift to my mind and my soul (especially this stressful time of year!) and I am so grateful to Eileen Barker, owner of my favorite bead store, Bead Street, and those who work beside her, Sue and Irene, and Sandy Taylor, who teaches many of the classes I take!  Thank you SO MUCH!  I enjoy my time in that shop so much!!!  So... getting back to the beading at hand... here's what we learned last weekend - a bracelet pattern which I made into earrings (Fritch bracelet) designed by Vezsuzsi.  I also made a necklace, and unfortunately,  lighting is difficult this time of year.  When I took some of these shots, the sun happened to be out for a minute, so I hurried for some natural lighting.  These earrings are not quite as light as shown, the second picture reflects better color.  I also used 4mm FP for the round circle in the front, and on the the pendant I used 4mm Swarovski bicone crystals around a coral gemstone center.  Again, color slightly less bright in reality.  Kind of fun to see what a difference a bead makes in a design.  Both equally beautiful, just different.

And, some darlin' little light wreath wire wrapped earrings to match the necklace.  SO CUTE!

BLING EARRINGS.

Earrings to match the bling Christmas necklace of last post. I'm trying something new with this post and my last. For those of you who watch my blog or see me on FB, I will occasionally list something for sale. The challenge will be payment as I'm not on Etsy or set up for PayPal as of yet, so this may be more for local patronage ... These earrings are 27.00. I did some wire wrapping around the red crystal and added tiny chain to give a bit more interest. Fun!!

MORE CHRISTMAS BLING!

The last week project learned at Bead Street, in class taught by Sandy!  Beeeeuuuuuttteeeeful!  This is a shiny one, perfect for the Holidays.  It's a design by Vezsuzsi named the Kolo pendant.  I love my choice of purple coupled with the translucent, flashy pink/red.  I added a blingy necklace with a couple of gold fire polish, and one red crystal, thrown in to spruce it up.  I'm working on earrings now.  I'm willing to sell this piece if there is interest... as it is worthy of blinding people during the HollyDaze! Let me know if interest!

LABOR OF LOVE WITH WIRE AND JADE!

This is one of those Labor of Love projects.  A friend of mine asked me if I could do something with some beads she had purchased some 12 years ago in Mexico.  I looked at them and knew I could, but time is short, so wasn't sure I'd figure out just what for awhile.  It did take me some time, but it finally came to me (at night when I do my best thinking!).  Wire wrapping flat cabochons is not something I do much of, so I knew it would be a challenge.  But I feel great about the outcome of this learning experience.  I'm not positive, but think these stones are a version of Green Jade or Apatite.  If anyone knows, please feel free to enlighten me.  The last picture provides a better view of the true color.  Photos sometimes are just hard to get...

ODE TO FALL...

My newest dangles for the season, which work for one more week, thank you very much!  Thank you to Penny Dixon, Trendsetters designer at Starman, Inc., for this wonderful earring pattern. It's on the COVER of Beadwork's October/November issue.  It's an intricate, beautifully put together design using netting and picot stitching, and as you can see, the color combos are endless.  I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving, and these beads I had in my stash, so kind of jumbled them together.  These brown/translucent pear shaped drops are hard to photo to highlight the beauty of the markings, but you get the idea.  My friends and I think these look a bit like turkeys!  All the better!

READYING FOR CHRISTMAS!

I KNOW, I KNOW, it's not Thanksgiving yet, but I have to be ready...  This is my Christmas version of a fun pattern called "Tubari" designed by Eileen at Bead Street.  It's a modified tubular herringbone stitch, using 8/0 sb and Unos.   The original pattern used Rizos, which made a lovely piece, but I also like to experiment.  I finished it with bronze bead caps and then wire wrapped a couple of 8mm FP and a bronze crystal, with chain.  The earrings I wire wrapped, using a larger bronze colored bead for the center (it's light weight tho - not real brass), with a green crystal and red 8mm FP.

 

 

TABLE CUT CZECH GLASS

Hand made table cut Czech glass beads make the most wonderful statement.  The beads are kind of hard to find, and I've had to order them on line - some from the UK.  I'm not sure why that is, but I think it has something to do with being hand made - not machine cut.  Anyway, I'm in love with them this season and pretty much find anything Czech glass is wonderful to work with.  I wire wrapped the little turquoise Czech flower buttons on top of the leaves so they stay forward, which worked well to tighten them down a bit.  I also added some sponge coral rounds under the top flower caps.  So, cute!

I'm kind of in a wire wrapping mood right now, so I started messing with 24 gauge wire and just kept pushing beads on.  Love this combination... again, Czech glass coupled with fire polish.

SPRUCING UP BLACK FOR A FRIEND!

I don't usually bead black... I'm more about c o l o r... as you know if you follow my posts, but for this friend, on this birthday of hers, well... I decided "it IS her birthday" afterall.  And, she LOVES black.  But, of course, I couldn't go totally black, so added in the copper and silver and man oh man.  I might be able to do black with this combo.  Beautiful pattern by Vezsuzsi, taught by Sandy at Bead Street.  The picture does not do the earrings justice - they are that wonderful puffed bead designed by SashaSi, which I posted in blue on March 17.  They really look awesome on. 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIMEE!!!!

DRAGONFLY DESIGN W/TWISTED HERRINGBONE TRIO

What color can do for a project... the proof becomes clear to me in this trio.  I started with the bracelet (I posted it a few weeks ago after taking the class from Sandy @ Bead Street, using a DRAGONFLY design by Eridhan Creations).  I then made the earrings because I just loved the design and the colors I had originally chosen, and then lo and behold, Sandy taught the Beaded Bead class and so this made the trio complete.  I finished it making a twisted tubular herringbone necklace, and then using 22 gauge copper wire to attach the beaded bead to the necklace.  Isn't this just lovely?  L O V E it!

MORE FINISHED HALLOWEEN!

More fun for this Season!  Love the changing of the SEASON, the colors, the fun of Halloween, the cooler temps (well... those temps are taking their sweet time arriving a little later than normal) and just the overall transition.  Each of the very separate four seasons here in Boise presents me with inspiration, and right now, this very moment, it's ORANGES, GREENS, PURPLES, BLACKS, etc.  Here's my second finished necklace using a J-Lynn Jewels tile and magnesite Jack-o-pumpkin, along with 3 different sizes/shapes of black onyx beads for the necklace, some lucite spacers, lucite striped colored rounds, Czech glass rounds and seed beads.  Copper and bronze wire, both used.  Fun and bright and spooky... well, not really very spooky, but very fun!  The purple necklace is from my last post, and as a refresher, has the beaded bead I made, along with the wood rounds and brass Ethiopian beads.  It's a great combo.

 

I included both of these pictures, because you can see more of the bottom of each necklace in each of the shots.

 

A little more vivid shot of this newest creation!  The black background gives different view I think.  And, I'm modeling this one below...

 

 

 

These orange Jack-o-pumpkins above are so cheery, with czech glass leaves and flower caps, instead of scarey, and those below, the colors of wonderful fall.

 

I like longer earrings right now, since my hair has grown some from my profile picture, and these earrings, using lampwork glass beads, are still pretty light.  Some onyx, some glass spacers, some Czech glass and flower buttons.